


Five times the Blue Lions were normal about food (and everyone else was weird)

by readythefanons



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Cultural Exploration, Duscur (Fire Emblem), FE3H Kinkmeme, Faerghus (Fire Emblem), Faerghus Culture, Food, Gen, Minor Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Dedue Molinaro, even my headcanons have headcanons, hunger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:47:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25855357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/readythefanons/pseuds/readythefanons
Summary: The Holy Kingdom of Faerghus is a cold, rocky place with harsh winters and short summers. It can be hard to grow enough for everyone.Love speaks through food,that’s how the saying goes.The importance of food as it pertains to the Blue Lions.
Comments: 26
Kudos: 57
Collections: FE3H Kink Meme





	Five times the Blue Lions were normal about food (and everyone else was weird)

**Author's Note:**

> Originally for the kinkmeme, with a few edits  
> Original post: https://3houseskinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/1608.html?thread=2054728#cmt2054728  
> With thanks to the prompter

**1. _Just in case_**

The Blue Lions always have food on them. They never need to be reminded to pack extra rations, they never need to be told to pack snacks for the road. They all have food in their rooms.

The weird thing is the other students, the ones who don’t. Leonie and Raphael get it, they know the importance of food. Raphael doesn’t keep food in his room, exactly, but he’s always bringing food back. It’s not really his fault he always gets hungry in a few hours. Leonie has rations in her rooms—normal stuff, jerky, sometimes cheese. No pickles though.

What does every Blue Lion student have in their room? It’s not an icon of the Goddess; it’s a jar of pickled vegetables. They look like decoration at first glance: take a good-sized glass jar and fill it with cut vegetables. Be sure to use a variety (a varied diet can be hard to come by in dead of winter). Use peppers (if you can find them), carrots, green beans, and beets. Use cabbage, garlic, mushrooms, and small onions. Use spices. Whatever you use, take the time to arrange them carefully—make it beautiful.

The nobles have the fanciest ones, but the commoner students have them too, with colorful layers. Even Dedue has one, even though, to Byleth’s memory, Duscur didn’t have much of a tradition of pickling. It is not a coincidence that Dedue’s resembles the one in Dimitri’s room.

In time, after the Blue Lions have come to know and care for their professor, Professor Eisner has one too. She puts it in a place of honor on her desk and smiles when she sees it.

Even before she received the pickles, Professor Eisner kept food in her room. It was packed alongside some money, a change of clothes, and other useful items one want if they had to leave a place in a hurry and with little warning. Professor Eisner lived with a roaming band of mercenaries her whole life, and sees nothing unusual about maintaining a everything-went-to-shit-grab-your-stuff-and-run bag.

**2. _What you wear to a wedding is not as important as what you serve._**

Food is at the heart of weddings in Faerghus. Sure, there are bridal gowns, and robes, and lovingly stitched jackets for the men, but—the wedding feast is really where the money, if there is any, goes. The bride’s family provides food, the groom’s family provides food, and all the guests bring food as well.

There are salted and smoked meats. There are cheeses. There’s the pickled fish, of course—sour, but nourishing, there for you even (and especially) in the coldest, hardest part of winter. There are the traditionally spiced potatoes: solid, sustaining, warming. There’s fruit—fresh or preserved—delicious, bursting with flavor, fleeting and treasured. There’s a cake, light and sweet as love in summer time.

Wedding cakes in Faerghus are flavored and decorated with nuts. There is too much hunger in Galatea for Ingrid to turn her nose up at any kind of food. She will eat whatever is available, as much as is permissible. However—given the _choice_ between nuts and any other source of sustenance, she will not choose nuts. Glenn loved butternuts. The skins are bitter, but the meat inside is rich and has a special sweetness. When she eats them, she remembers—well, it hardly matters now. She eats them when she must, and she holds tight to the faith that although she will always _remember_ (she doesn’t want to forget), someday the sweetness will balance the bitterness again.

**3. _How about you mind your own business_**

“That’s all you’re eating?” Felix asks, in tones of distrust. Before Ingrid can say a thing, he adds another roll to her plate, walks away.

“Here, I got extra,” Ashe says and deposits a side dish of vegetables between himself and Ingrid.

“You have to try this,” Annette insists, and forks a drumstick from her own plate to Ingrid.

“Help, I took too much,” Sylvain says, and pushes a plate with a piece of untouched meat pie at her.

“These are too good not to share,” Mercedes says sweetly, nudging a roll at her.

In two months at Garreg Mach, Ingrid shoots up three inches.

“Are you really going to eat all that?” Lorenz asks, staring at Ingrid’s plate like it offends him. Ingrid stares at the floor. It is too much, she knew it. She just— “I know what they say about Faerghus, but really—”

“Annette,” Professor Eisner says from the doorway. “I heard what happened.”

“He had it coming,” Annette says mutinously. She is lying on a bench in the Blue Lions common room. Her hand really, really hurts. The pain is supposed to be teaching her a lesson, or something. “Also, he is terrible.”

“He has a lot of growing to do, and many lessons to learn,” Professor Eisner agrees blandly. She comes into Annette’s field of vision, puts an unstoppered vulnerary on the table. “As do you. As punishment, I have decided that you will meet me in the training yard twice times a week for unarmed combat lessons. We can’t have you breaking your fingers willy-nilly.”

“And Lorenz?” Annette asks. She reaches for the vulnerary, drinks it. The pain in her hand melts away.

“He did not punch anyone in the dining hall,” the professor reminds her. “However, I believe Lady Catherine is having a chat with him about nutrition and decorum.”

“All those etiquette lessons, and he never learned not to comment on another person’s food,” Annette agrees, flexing her newly-healed fingers. 

**4. _Bereaved_**  
When Flaynn learns that Dimitri cannot taste, she is shocked. What does it mean that he has not tasted anything since the Tragedy of Duscur? What indeed.

What Dimitri has is a recognized condition in Faerghus. It’s very, very common for a person beset by grief to lose their ability to savor food. Dimitri’s condition reflects a difference in scale, not a difference in kind. The duration of his condition merely reflects the magnitude of his loss and the weight of the memories that press upon him.

The Holy Kingdom of Faerghus is a cold, rocky place with harsh winters and short summers. It can be hard to grow enough for everyone. _Love speaks through food,_ that’s how the saying goes. It’s not all that surprising that the language of—sweetness, of savor, of community and life, that’s all closed off to Dimitri now. Many days he feels that he is a ghost, he just happens to still have a body.

In Duscur, they say—said— _when words are not enough, go to the kitchen._ Dedue told him that. Duscur and Faerghus have—had—many things in common. In Duscur there was a canon of recipes for all occasions. Baked rolls for families with new babies. Heavy stew for grief. Spiced dishes for the injured. Soup for the sick. Sweets for celebrations in summertime. Savories for celebrations in cold weather. The meanings in Faerghus are not codified in the same way, but the intention exists. 

When Dedue pulled himself, hand over hand, out of the darkness to tend to his companion, he went to the kitchen. Dimitri taught him to read from the Goddess’s scriptures, but Dedue immerses himself in recipes. He learns Faerghan cooking, he learns the flavor combinations. He eats more potatoes, pickles, and salted fish than he can ever imagine. He presents Dimitri with dish after dish, and Dimitri eats it all, taste or no taste.

Dedue knows Dimitri is coming alive again when he starts to season his own dishes, responding to the flavors that have always been there are making them his own. Eventually, in the future, a day comes when Dimitri joins him in the kitchen, stirring this and adding a pinch of that. They oversalt the fish with their tears and burn the vegetables in the pot, and each mouthful goes down easily because all they can taste is—hope, for a future that’s theirs for the making.

**5. _Tea for Two_**  
The best way to catch the Blue Lions for a little chat is to invite them to tea. Even Sylvain, even when he knows it’s about the girls, will show up for tea. Professor Eisner takes the time to make sure she’s got the right kind of tea, but for the Lions she spends more time making sure she has the right kind of snacks. Sweet for Annette, Mercedes, and Ashe. Savory for Ingrid and Sylvain. Salted and spiced for Dedue. Felix likes pickles, and Dimitri seems to respond well to things with a good, crunchy texture. She always gets twice as much as she thinks they’ll need, and she always has a basket on hand for left overs.

The Blue Lions habitually share food. It is easy to read the mood of the group by watching the flow of treats from person to person. A group where food is hidden away or eaten in private is a group that is tense, unhappy, and mistrustful. When things are going well—

Professor Eisner looks around at her students. Mercedes is sharing cookies with Ingrid. Ashe and Dedue are sharing some nuts. Felix is not eating, but she did see him tuck a bit of cheese and sausage into his saddlebags under Annette’s approving eye. Annette is currently splitting a bread roll with Sylvain, who is cutting of a piece of cheese for her. Dimitri watches them all, absentmindedly picking at the nuts Dedue has packed for him. The sun is shining, a breeze is blowing, and the Blue Lions are at ease and ready for the day.

**+1 _Break bread and celebrate_**  
The celebration is a longtime coming. Technically, Dimitri ascends the throne at the end of the Harpstring Moon, and they take the enemy capital at the end of Verdant Rain, but there is so much to do that the coronation _festival_ is delayed for almost a full year.

It’s a knock-down, blow-out, smash the jars and sing down the moon event. Somehow, even though they all have, as Felix put it, _actually important things to be doing_ they all get pulled into planning. Individual towns and villages plan celebrations. The capitals of each territory are given over to celebration. Work functionally stops in Fhirdiad for the entire week (to the dismay of both Felix and Dimitri). The castle is busier than an overturned anthill. Any number of leaders and dignitaries come to the castle, including the Archbishop, Her Holiness, the Enlightened One, Professor ‘You can just call me Byleth’ Eisner.

There are _so many_ pickles. And smoked and salted meats and fish, and cheese, and there are casks upon casks of drink, and there are biscuits and nuts and grains. Everyone who comes to the castle brings food, and those who can’t make the trip send food. They have to set aside a warehouse for the gifts from the towns and villages—one bag of potatoes might not be a lot, but they add up quickly. Annette gets a particularly maniacal glint in her eye and ends up pulling a bunch of people (Ingrid, obviously, and Dedue, and Professor ‘Really, please call me Byleth’ Eisner, and others upon others) into her office and emerges a surprisingly short time later with a proposal to take some of the extra (they have _extra_ ) and send it to outlying regions for planting. Whole fields of potatoes, onions, beans, and millet are shepherded into existence. There is always going to be another hard year, but for now they have time to plant.

It feels like the whole world comes to Fhirdiad.

And days before all of that—before the glittering circus that is the Formal Banquet, before feasting in the streets and singing until dawn—there is this: a laughing, chattering group of young (not so young as they once were) people working at cross purposes. Most of the kitchen staff have been granted the day off, and the Blue Lions Class of 1180 are occupying the kitchen. They move loosely, touching shoulders, leaning in. Byleth is among them in a stained and serviceable apron. Annette kisses her cheek, Mercedes gives her a half-hug, even Ingrid pats her on the shoulder. She gets a literal pat on the back from Ashe, a Sylvain draped over her back and shoulders, and approving nods from Felix, Dimitri, and Dedue. The elaborate dishes will come later, but today is a day for simple recipes, for foods that are homey (and sometimes homely, but taste good all the same). What could possibly be nicer, on any day, than standing side-by-side, talking and working together to create something to share?

**Author's Note:**

> I have a few little bits and pieces that didn't make it into the final for this, but come scream with me about headcanons in the comments :D
> 
> OH and a recommendation if you liked this work: [A Treatise on Faerghus Traditions, Rituals of the Old North and Customs of Tribal Law](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20729432/chapters/49248911) by Antartique. It's ongoing, and it has headcanons galore and I can't recommend it enough. Get over there, read it, and leave a comment :)
> 
> Oh, and if you like Dimitri and Dedue, please allow me to promote my own fic, [Very Basic Gardening Manual for Absolute Beginners](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25745020) or, for a Blue Lions ensemble piece that is deeply silly (verging on stupid) there's [in vino veritas (yo Annette's wasted)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25759033)
> 
> But seriously, check out the Treatise on Faerghus Traditions, it's great
> 
> <3


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